Gauchos

This new, redesigned edition of Burri's acclaimed The Gaucho, published in 1968, includes a beautifully written foreword by celebrated Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, a revised text by Jose Luis Lanuza on the history and culture of gauchos, and a new afterword by the photographer. Burri takes us into a world rarely seen by outsiders, documenting its historical riches and its awkward place in the modern world. His images of a dying tradition are lyrical and incisive. Through his lens, we see the authentic gaucho, in characteristic vest, hat, and scarf, driving cattle through stark plains, twirling his lasso, branding colts, drinking mate, taking a meditative smoke. "His ethnic definition," writes Borges in his introduction, "seems a casual son of forgotten conquistadores and settlers, sometimes he had Indian blood or Negro blood - other times he was white. No matter; to be a gaucho was a destiny."